Marvin, the King of Bohemia

This all started with Margie. She was so embarrassed about accepting a date with me, she invented a background story for her friends. She told them all that I was a descendant of Charles IV of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia. Totally unprovable and utterly false, yet it enthralled her circle of friends and suddenly I was the hottest man in the city.

I didn't know any of this at the beginning because she had whispered this to anyone she told with this warning; He absolutely must remain anonymous for assassins had been dispatched to usurp the throne, and revealing the truth could mean death to anyone close me.

Of course, that just added to the intrigue.

I guess.

My name is Marvin. I'm a tax accountant for CPAs-r-Us. I like reading. My shoe size is 6.

That was my profile on Plenty-of-Fish and

frankly, it didn't get much attention until Margie started spreading her rumors.

I never had a return call from her, but within days of our date, I was getting invitations from dozens of women-- random phone messages, unsolicited emails, pings on Skype (even from woman NOT in China or Russia) and, mixed in with the grocery store circulars in my lonely mailbox were piles of scented cards; all women asking me to go out with them.

The first invitation I accepted was from Julia, a fitness trainer from Chesterfield.

--- The Story of Julia ---

"I thought you'd be taller," said Julia. "Maybe it's because you're from Luxembourg."

"I'm from Olivette," I said.

"Oh, right." she said as she gave me this exaggerated wink and a thumbs up, followed by a quick paranoid glance over each shoulder.

What the heck was that about? I wondered.

We were seated at the front table of the Mangez au Louis--which is owned by a friend of mine, Lou. He describes his place as a multi-cultural, fusion experience. I will say his Mexican spaghetti and French potato pancakes are to-die-for. I bring all my dates here. It feels like home.

I filled Julia's water glass with Sangria and asked her, "So, I understand you are a fitness trainer. Can you tell me about that?"

Well, it turns out she could and she did... for about the next 30 minutes. I learned about interval training, metabolism, phytochemicals, stretching, building lean mass. At one point, she pulled up the sleeve of her dress and demonstrated her bicep, which stood up like a muscular fist. (I'm glad she didn't ask me to do the same.) At some point I found myself listening more to the muzak than her.

"...so, Marv." She was addressing me now, so I snapped around. "Do you know your BMI?" she asked.

"No, I don't believe I do." I responded.

She looked me up and down and shook her head. "I am going to guess your about 5," she said. "You don't seem to have any body fat at all."

"Oh, OK. Then what would you recommend for someone with my physique?" I asked.

"Gym." she said.

"Gym?" I asked.

"Gym." she nodded.

After dinner, we returned to Julia's place where she kissed me on the forehead and invited me in. As soon as we were inside the door, she started shedding clothes, oblivious to my sagging jaw.

Man, she was ripped. Her muscular thighs terminated at tight, concave buttocks. Julia's breasts were massive pectorals punctuated with thick brown nipples. She stretched her arms high and wide and her back muscles looked like wings. Wow.

"Do you want me to stay, Julia?" I asked

"Of course, Marv. The bathroom is right there."

she answered as she pulled back the covers and flopped into her bed.

When I came out the lights were dim and Julia was laying face up, naked, spread eagle in her bed with her legs wide. And, she was asleep. Too much Sangria, I guess. I laid down beside her and ran my finger up and down her washboard abs.

One, two, three, four....

Four, three, two, one...

I sighed put my clothes again, and went home.

Back in my bedroom that night, I was pecking away on my computer. I modified my POF profile to read:

My name is Marv. I'm a tax accountant for CPAs-r-Us. I like reading. My shoe size is 6. Not an ounce of body fat.

--- The Story of Rachael ---

Rachael was plumper than Julia and she had heard the back story of Marvin too, but was good enough not to mention it in the first few introductory sentences. It did come up while we were waiting for the movie to start.

"Marvin," said Rachael, as she was fishing out some more popcorn, "What's it like in Bohemia?"

"I have no friggin idea," I answered.

Rachael started laughing hysterically. "I knew you would answer it that way. You are too funny!" she said, still giggling. "If it makes you feel better about it, I have no idea too!" More laughing.

What? I thought. I just smiled and nodded.

The movie was a complicated spoof of a space horror flick that Rachael enjoyed it immensely. She guffawed, she screamed at the scary parts, she grabbed my arm pressed her ample bosom into me-- a lot. I liked that. She smelled like peaches. I liked that too.

On the way to the car after the movie, Rachael was jabbering away about scenes in the movie and laughing as she remembered funny lines. She stopped short of my car and gasped!

"Oh my!" she exclaimed. "Do you know what you have here?" She asked.

"Er. It's a '65 Ford my grandfather restored. I told you that, yes?" I responded.

"No." she said with a look of absolute delight.

"It is the perfect make-out car."

The Four Door Ford Galaxie was an every-day utility car in 1965, but it had one unique attribute that made in perfect for police cars, taxi service and (apparently) making out. It had a huge back seat with at least 2 feet of extra legroom.

Rachael suggested we grab some beer and give it a spin, so we stopped by a packaged liquor store and headed off to the canal roads.

After a few Millers and few thrown beer bottles at slow-moving barges, Rachael turned her attention to me. "So, Marvi-baby, would you be like a Duke or a King." she slurred.

Going with the flow, I said, "Rachael, right here, right now with you, I am going to say I'm ... a King."

"I knew it!" she trumpeted. She leaned her head out the window and shouted to the underside of the bridge, "I am going to make love to a King!" With that, she tossed her bottle out the window and leaned over to me. "Is that OK?" She asked expectantly.

My head bobbed up and down, and she suddenly kissed me, deeply, wetly-- a kiss she held while she pulled her shirt open (ok, I helped.) Then she unbuttoned my shirt (I helped there too.) She sat up, reached behind her back and undid her bra. Her boobs tumbled out and bobbed up and down while she magically pulled her bra out of one of her sleeves. "Tada!" she said, laughing. It was mesmerizing.

After a short bit of rubbing chest to chest, Rachael was hungry for more so she sat up again, and undid my belt buckle, roughly pulling it apart. She undid the top button of my pants and then slowly, seductively pulled down my zipper watching my face with a feral, aching look. She grabbed the edges of my jeans and yanked, pulling them off my hips and gasped ....

"Oh... How cute!" she said.

Right at that moment, a police cruiser flipped on its lights behind us. The steamy back window was alight with flashing red and blue lights. After a hurried re-dressing and a stern lecture from the trooper about trespassing we drove home.

When I dropped her off, Rachael gave me a peck on the lips, smiled and said 'it was fun' and 'we should do this again sometime.' She turned and walked up to her door without looking back. The porch light blinked out.

Back on my computer at home, I changed my Plenty-Of-Fish profile again. It now reads:

Marv's the name, accounting's my game. I like

reading. My shoe size is 6. Not an ounce of body fat. I have been called both funny and cute.

---- The Story of Emily ----

Emily was the first to tell me the story that Margie had told her friends about me. After my most recent dates, I decided to screen future prospective girlfriends on the phone and many of those calls didn't last long. Many of the women I interviewed reeked of insincerity and weird curiosity. Odd questions, odd responses. In my screening call with Emily, she was brutally honest when I asked her why she had reached out to me.

".... I figured the story was bull shit," she said, "but, I really wanted to know what kind of dork goes out with Margie." "And," she added, "something else caught my eye."

"Really, what was that?" I asked.

"Your Warby-Parker glasses," she said.

I don't wear Warby-Parkers. I have gray, military style acetate BCGs. You can buy them on-line for about $32. I was debating whether to correct her when I recalled that I had no profile photograph.

"Wait a minute. Where did you see a photo of me?" I asked.

"Margie had one on her phone. Wasn't very good of either of you, and, of course Margie was more of the picture. You were in the back with those retro glasses and a plaid, button down, short sleeved shirt. That was you, wasn't it?" she asked.

"Yes, that was me." I admitted. "But, you called anyway?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" she replied.

"Would you still like to like to meet me sometime, maybe for coffee?" I asked. Damn it. I sounded too tentative. And, too hopeful. I slapped myself on the forehead.

There was silence on the line. I though my cell might have dropped the signal.

"Hello, are you still there?" I asked.

After a few moments, she spoke. "Yes. Listen, there is an art showing at Gallery X on south Grand tomorrow. If you want to see me, why don't you meet me there?"

"OK, but how will I know you?" I asked.

"Oh," she laughed "I am a strawberry blond with blue streaks in my hair on the right side....and I will be wearing the female version of your BCGs. Ha! Have a good night, Marvin. I hope to see you there."

The cell connection dropped.

The next night, I showed up at Gallery X at 7 when the show opened. There were a few people milling around, but I did not see anyone remotely resembling Emily. I pulled out my cell phone, but no missed calls. I thought about calling her, but thought better of it. Maybe I'll just take a look around at the artwork.

The first thing I saw was a large black and white photo of a naked man's torso, with a limp dick. It made me shudder. I moved to the next. I think that one was some geometric flowers, or something. I moved on. The next was a six foot tall vagina, at least I think it was. I stepped back to view it better. It was very stylized, and the colors were very dark, but yes, it was a vagina. I'm sure of it.

"You like what you see?" Emily had appeared by my side. When I jumped, startled, she smiled and added. "Hi. It's me." She blinked at me owl-like, still smiling.

I smiled too, and said, "Hi. Uh, Yes. It's... ah.... pretty in-your-face, I think."

"Yes," she said. "It is always pretty in your face." Clever girl.

"Is the artist who painted it here tonight?" I asked.

She paused, tilted her glasses onto the top of her head and asked, "Let me see your program, will you?"

I handed it over, and a sharpie appeared in her hand. She flipped over and signed it on the back. "Let me show you something," she said as she took my hand and tugged me to the vagina painting. When we got there, she held the program over the artists signature with her signature on top. Then she pulled it away. They were the same. She handed the program back to me saying, "Here, Marvin. You can keep this for free. Might be worth something someday."

That was my introduction to Emily. Most of the paintings in the show were her work. Most of the work was stylized human body parts. Most of those parts were genitalia. She thoughtfully explained each as we walked through the gallery sipping coffee. I asked her about the apparent theme. She told me, she paints what she knows, and for her, sex was fundamental to life itself.

Excellent!

As the last few art admirers filtered out, she asked me if I'd like to continue our conversation in her apartment.

Absolutely!

Her apartment was two blocks from the gallery, in the top floor of an old warehouse. We had to climb a metal stair and open a huge sliding metal door to enter. The space was a mess. There was a mattress with unmade sheets on the floor in the middle of piles of art supplies and half-done, giant canvases.

"Marvin?" she asked. "I'm working on a new project and I wonder if you could help me with it"

"Sure, Emily," I replied, "How can I help?"

"Take your clothes off." She rummaged around in a pile of stuff and came up with a very expensive looking digital camera. She explained, "I need some source material, and that requires a male figure. You don't mind, do you?" She stopped fiddling with her camera and looked over at me. I had not moved.

"OK"

I took my time taking off my clothes. Emily turned up the lights. It seemed very bright, and there were no curtains on the windows-- which lined the walls. Eventually, I was down to my boxer-briefs and socks. Emily had mounted the camera on a tripod. She looked over at me with a little irritation. She made a ffft ffft sound and wiggled her finger-- meaning 'Go ahead. take the rest off.'

Which, I did.

Emily started shooting immediately. Every angle possible. Far away and close and very, very close.

The big metal door suddenly slid open and in popped another girl.

Yow! I grabbed the sheets off the bed to cover myself and both the women started laughing. Emily introduced me to her girlfriend, Angie. She said she was there to help out, and then the two of them kissed each other. And groped each other. And kissed some more. I was standing there naked, holding a bed sheet over my privates-- not really sure what to do.

Emily suddenly remembered I was there and said, "Oh, Marvin. I'm sorry. Would you mind manning the camera for a while?" She removed the camera from the tripod and handed it to me. "Just point and shoot. Can't screw it up. Shoot what looks good to you."

So, I shot photo after photo... naked. Angie stripped Emily whose entire left tit had been tattooed with an elaborate middle-eastern, geometric motif centered on her nipple-- constructed entirely of tiny little dots. Emily, in turn hungrily stripped Angie who didn't seem to have body art, but her slight figure was was a close match of Emily's. The two of them fell onto the mattress and made love to each other. I kept taking photos, naked, while my erection waggled from side to side.

Soon, both climaxed and the room quieted. Angie fell asleep, and Emily padded over to me to look at the photos I had taken. I was fixated on the art on her chest. She said, "These are really nice. Thank you, Marvin." And she kissed me on the cheek. "You are a sweet man."

When the steel door closed behind me, I stood for a moment on the platform enjoying the cool night breeze. There had been no further conversation. Emily returned to the mattress and snuggled in with Angie. I gathered my clothes and left.

When I got home, I modified my POF profile like this:

I am Marvin. I am well read and cultured. Not an ounce of body fat. I have been called both funny and cute. I am ahead-of-my-time stylish. And, who gives a fuck about my shoe size anyway?

I then took all the cards and lists of women I had gathered and chucked them in the trash. I erased every email, every Skype message, every voice mail. Everything.

Within the next few days, I got no more invitations.

Except one.

------- The Story of Apple Brown -------

The email simply read, "Hi Marvin. We should meet. I think I have what you are looking for. You can find me at the Farmer's Market on Saturday." and it was signed Apple Brown. I checked the POF profile for Apple Brown and it was a female, but the text was blank. No photograph either. That was odd, but somehow mysterious. On Saturday, I decided to head downtown to the market. I needed some vegetables anyway, so, what the heck?

The Farmer's Market was pretty busy, and I wandered around a bit wondering how to find this woman I had never seen and could not describe. She really had given me nothing to go on, so I started picking through the most attractive candidates.

"Hi, is your name Apple?" I asked one woman who was rummaging through a big pile of zucchini. She shook her head and quickly moved to the other side of the squash pile.

"Ms. Brown, is that you?" I asked another woman at the next stand. She looked at me blandly and simple said, 'No.'

"Excuse me, are you looking to meet someone here?" I asked another. That lady was startled by my question. She bundled up her little brown bag of tomatoes and seemed shaken as she quickly headed for the exit.

I thought I had scored when I found the 'Brown Family Farms' fruit stand. When I asked the vendor if there was anyone there named 'Apple' he looked confused and pointed at a huge pile of McIntoshes in the front of his stall.

Finally, I gave up. I thought I'd just get my groceries and go home, so I bought a small bag of carrots. I was selecting a little stalk of broccoli when woman standing next to me said, "Oh, honey, you need to be eating more than that!"

I turned to see a pleasant, full figured, caramel skinned woman grinning and eyeing me up and down. "Put some meat on your bones," she added as she loaded an armful of onions to her basket.

"Yes," I said sheepishly. "I only have myself to cook for, and I guess I don't do it very well."

"Oh, baby," she said with full pouty lips, "You mean you got no good woman takin' care of you?"

I shook my head and tried to smile. "No, just me."

She held out her hand and said, "Marvin, my name is Betty. My friends call me Apple Brown." There was a twinkle in her eyes as she watched my astonished face. She took the broccoli stalk out of my hand, tossed it back into the pile and put her arm through the crook of mine. "Let's go see if we can get you fed, " she said.

The farmers market has a vendor selling barbecue at the end, so we settled in at a picnic table with rack of smoky ribs and paper plates between us. It turns out she had spotted me immediately; navigating the crowd approaching strange women, getting startled reactions. "That one lady you asked 'do you like apples?' thought you were crazy!" she laughed, remembering the how quickly that woman had moved away. "You were cutting a wide path, so you were easy to spot." She laughed, then got quiet and held her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, Marvin. I guess that was a mean thing to do."

"No, Betty. " I smiled. "I have gotten used to it." I told her Margie's made up story of me and Charles IV of Luxemburg, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, and the assassins out to get me. She had not heard it, was not part of that circle of friends. She suddenly looked sad for me. A rib bone in on hand, she reached out her other and set it on top of mine. It felt warm and genuine. Our eyes connected and I knew, just knew she was there with me. Therefor me.

After a few moments, she pulled back her hand, popped the end of the rib in her mouth and said, "Honey, if you ever see those girls again." She paused to suck the bone sensuously and pointed it at me. "You can tell them you are with Princess Kamilah, third daughter of Muwenda Mutebi II, the King of Uganda." She smiled.

I laughed. "That's great! Princess, daughter of the King of Uganda..." Betty wasn't laughing. "Wait, is that true?" I asked.

Betty stared at me, deadpan for few moments. She turned her head regally and sucked barbecue sauce off her fingers one at time, before she said, "Nope." Her laugh was hearty and infectious.

We talked and laughed like that all afternoon. In a more serious moment, I learned that Betty had spotted my original profile entry on Plenty-of-Fish. It was so understated and sad, that it caught her eye. She watched it morph over time, and it intrigued her even more, because it had matched her own experience. Her first profile had been shy and awkward, but as she learned more about herself from the men she met, her profile changed. More confident yes, but more frustrated. Without even meeting or seeing me, I resonated with her.